Plane Food: Round 4

I was actually kind of excited to write about this book for the simple novelty of giving something a bad review. It really isn't tough to entertain me, and I don't think that Deliver Us From Normal even tried. Perhaps Klise was attempting to portray events in the truly naive view of her eleven-year-old narrator, and, in a way, it worked. The book was ambitious, but totally shortsighted - a remarkable feat to say the least. Charlie is a hyper-sensitive kid, but he doesn't really realize that he has anxiety attacks, and no one bothers to talk to him about them. He just goes around thinking that he has 'special powers' to understand everything that is going on around him, when really he's misinterpreting most all of it. Because of his issues, after a mildly bad incident at school, the parents pull everyone out of school, without telling Charlie why. He's left to believe what he always assumes, that his family isn't 'normal' enough to stay in a town called conveniently, Normal, IL. This flee from the hometown is supposed to allow Charles to grow, see his family without embarrassment and realize what's important in life through a series of ridiculous (and irresponsible, for the parents) events. Some sort of epiphany was reached, but not realistically. This book wasn't worth my time. It was boring from start to finish, and I only finished it to confirm that it was bad (and I can't write something disparaging without all the facts, right?). Despite its 'teen' classification in the library, it should probably be in 'J,' if its even worth having around. Oh, and I was horribly disappointed to realize that those were, in fact, bunnies, not kangaroos on the cover as I gotten into my head.